Some interesting links – really, those ladies over there are busy translating articles from all over the world – I don’t know of any better single source for current global news articles on matters Papal:

First, here’s one one, an interview with the "other" papal secretary (scroll down to the bottom of the page)

At 19.30 o’clock we have our evening supper. At about 20.15 o’clock we all go into the private chapel in order to pray. Afterwards, we work on documents again. The Pope must look at these letters himself and sign documents. The Pope works sometimes until late into the night, Johannes Paul II, when he was yet healthy, always until 22.30 clock.

At 21.15 o’clock, my service ends. Sometimes I go eat an ice with friends. However, mostly I remain in my room and hear music or go on the terrace of the apartment in order to snatch a little fresh air. Sometimes we watch television and together with the Pope we look at messages. Sometimes we can also see a film, but the day is usually too short.

I suppose the "messages" would be communications of various sorts. Or are they all gathered around the computer with the Pope, reading email and IM-ing? And is this television-watching done with the Pope, too? I want to know!

He’s trying to learn some more Polish:

Benedict XVI will sing in Polish selected fragments of the Holy Mass – disclosed in an interview with KAI Fr. Stanislaw Szczepaniec, in charge of the papal celebration in Cracow Blonia. The priest said that also shorter prayers will be recited by the Pontiff in Polish.

The Holy Mass in Cracow Blonia on May 28 will be celebrated by Benedict XVI in Latin, especially the longer prayers. – There are, however, longer fragments which the Holy Father will recite in Polish – Fr. Stanislaw Szczepaniec told KAI. He added that the Pope may also sing in Polish. – This is probably going to be the first time ever he has sung in Polish! – stressed Fr. Szczepaniec.

A short, interesting discussion on why the Mass will be in Latin.

And then, a translation of one of the other responses to Cardinal Martini, one cited by Magister, but not translated.

In his blog today,4/29/06, Sandro Magister provides a link to an open letter to Cardinal Martini, written by Lucetta Scaraffia, a bioethicist who has also been one of the leading editorial writers for Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference.

The letter was published in the Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Wednesday, 4/26/05. Magister notes that Avvenire has chosen not to comment in its pages about Martini’s interview on life and death maters published in the magazine L’Espresso earlier this week.

Now, from the "open letter:"

Finally, (I find) your statement that “scientific progress cannot be stopped” absolutely surprising in its banality: from a scholar like you I truly never expected to hear such a cliché. Today, what you call “scientific progress” depends on whoever is interested in a certain field of research, (in medicine) almost totally on the funding by pharmaceutical multinationals who put their efforts in the direction which the market considers most profitable at any given time.

Don’t you think that it would be useful, if not indispensable, to question these choices, in the face of the cultural conformism that surrounds us? And the Catholic Church – which is called on, as you emphasize, to “form consciences, to teach (the faithful) how to discern good in every occasion” – what else has it been doing but to carry out this arduous task, shared by lay intellectuals like Juergen Habermas and Luc Boltanski, seeking to judge scientific progress by criteria other than those used by the reigning cultural conformism?

It is not so much a question of prohibitions “especially if premature,” as you say, nor of “oscillating between rigor and laxity,” but the Church must remind (the faithful) of some simple truths in the face of all these promises of happiness and progeny to each and everyone, which have as little scientific basis as the “certainty” of finding curative powers in embryonic stem cells. The basic truth, above all, about the worthiness of the human being in whatever condition and whatever stage of his development.

Your words conform to political correctness – that is why the media have so enthusiastically played it up – and do little to help a discussion that is already difficult because of the long dragged-out process of cultural delegitimization to which the Church is being subjected and with it, every Catholic who wishes to remain faithful to its teaching.